A listener writes “Hi Wes, I wanted to reach out and ask how you go about identifying footprints, specifically how you distinguish a human footprint from a possible Sasquatch print.
A family member recently sent me several photos after they encountered what appeared to be barefoot prints while riding a trail loop at a state park. On their third pass through the loop, they noticed the prints in the deep mud along the bike trail. They hadn’t noticed them on the way in, but on the way out they saw that the prints appeared to go in both directions toward and away from the trailhead.
What made the situation especially strange was that there were no other vehicles parked at the trailhead besides theirs. The park is typically fairly busy, but this particular trail is more secluded. They had already made two passes through the area and never encountered or passed anyone who could have entered the trail after them and then left before they did.
My family member and I both found that odd, especially because it was barely 70 degrees that day and the area is extremely densely forested. The vegetation on either side of the trail was so thick that you couldn’t see past the next bend it was almost like walking through a tunnel without a roof. There didn’t seem to be an obvious opportunity for someone to enter or leave the trail without being noticed.
After hearing about the prints, I went to investigate for myself after getting off work. My family member had mentioned that some of the prints were quite large, so I was curious to see them firsthand.
When my boyfriend and I arrived at the trailhead, we noticed the first print almost immediately in the mud. We also noticed another print beside it that appeared to be going in the opposite direction. We took several photos and I measured a few of the prints. Some are much clearer than others, but there are several that show the shape fairly well.
My family member also measured the gait. He said it wasn’t an extremely large stride, but it was an uncomfortable distance for him to cover at a normal walking pace. He estimated that some of the prints were roughly 2 to 2.5 feet from toe to heel.
I didn’t measure the gait myself because, honestly, I felt pretty uneasy while we were there. At one point, I kept smelling what seemed like feces. It smelled more like human feces than anything else, which really creeped me out given the circumstances.
Another thing I found interesting was that whatever or whoever made the prints didn’t appear to make any effort to avoid the mud puddles. Instead, the tracks went directly through them, including some very dark, almost black mud. That struck me as unusual because there were areas where the mud could have been avoided.
Of course, there are plenty of possible explanations. Someone could have been walking through the woods barefoot, and there’s always the possibility that someone was simply doing something bizarre. But given the size of some of the prints, the circumstances, and the fact that the tracks appeared to go in both directions, I’m genuinely curious about what we were looking at.
If you’d like to see more photos, I’d be happy to send them. Some of the additional pictures are clearer than the ones I’m including here, and several have a tape measure positioned alongside the print for scale. I also noticed that the big toe appears unusually large in a couple of the photographs.
I’d really appreciate your thoughts on how you would analyze these tracks and what features you look for when determining whether a print is human or potentially something else.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I’m looking forward to hearing what you think.”